When one envisions a stereotypical school lunch, a
plate of
leathery cheese pizza and a high fructose-laden soda with a side of
green jello
may come to mind. Fortunately this concept of lunch is soon to be tossed
in the
trash at a handful of New York City public institutions.

Currently 25 schools around NYC are taking part in a
unique
program where kids will have a chance, not only to eat whole, organic
foods,
but also to work in the soil and see little seedlings mature into
healthy,
edible plants. It's not the first time school gardens have become the
flavor of
the month, but it's the first time it's happened on a significant scale
in the
country's largest and most diverse city.

While the steel and concrete landscape of NYC may
seem
uninhabitable to much of anything green and living, its five boroughs
actually
house the largest network of urban gardens in the entire country, which
includes some 600 city-run gardens that service over 20,000 residents.
The
program, called GreenThumb, also provides educational workshops about
gardening
and nutrition to many New Yorkers.

The GreenThumb plots are just a fraction of the
total public
garden spaces in the Big Apple, most of which serve low income, minority
communities. Indeed NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, while being criticized
for a
number of policy implementations (especially in relationship to his
handling of
other school system policies) of late, has received accolades from
public
health advocates for his support in banning trans fats from restaurants
as well
forcing all chain establishments to post calorie counts of the food they
sell.

Now Bloomberg has teamed up with one of TV's
spunkiest
celebrity chefs, Rachel Ray, whose Yum-o! organization is helping to
provide
logistical support for the building and maintenance of the new school
garden
program.

"We are very excited to form this public-private
partnership with Mayor Bloomberg to help teach New York City youth where
food
comes from and in turn provide them with encouragement to make healthier
choices," said Rachael Ray. "In addition to empowering kids to cook
and have a healthier relationship with food, these programs will also
allow us
to show kids how the culinary arts can be a positive career path, which
is one
of the major goals of our Yum-o! organization."

The purported goal of the "Garden to Café" program
is to connect these gardens and school lunches through seasonal
harvesting
celebrations. The City will be providing small grants to expand the
program
next year, and while the its rollout clearly needs additional funding to
make a
substantial impact on student health, it is nonetheless being touted as
an
example of what lunch programs across the U.S. should strive to reflect.

"My response to this initiative? Yes!," New York
University Public Health Professor and renowned author Marion Nestle
recently
said in and interview. "This is a terrific thing for Rachel Ray to take
on. If anyone can do it, she can. I'm aware of a few NYC public schools
that
include growing food as part of the curriculum or community service, and
those
programs work well enough to inspire others."

The fact is, anything that could possibly
contribute to a
reduction of obesity and Type 2 diabetes among children in NYC is likely
to be
popular among public health proponents. The New York Academy of Sciences
reports that over 23 million Americans suffer from Type 2 diabetes. The
disorder is also disproportionately more common among minority groups in
the
U.S. and is associated with a diet laden with high-fructose corn syrup
and low
fiber.

A major objective of the lunch program is to
introduce
healthy foods that perhaps aren't a staple in their current, processed
food
eating habits.

"As a kid, I was thrilled by the taste of fresh
vegetables and berries that I watched grow and there is plenty of
evidence that
kids who know how to grow food will be much more adventurous about
tasting
it," Prof. Nestle added.

Of course, in a population-dense city with minimal
open
spaces, additional school gardens will have to be developed
innovatively, and
in some cases, in unorthodox locales. In the East Village at the
bustling PS
364 vegetables are being grown in pickle barrels. Up in the Bronx at
Discovery
High School a hydroponic system is operating to allow the school to grow
organic food in a limited area. Over in Brooklyn rainwater collection
and
compositing is also helping PS 146 to sustain its blossoming school
garden.

However, not all agree that such a program will be
intellectually beneficial to students. In a recent article in The
Atlantic,
Caitlin Flanagan ripped into the school gardening "fad" in
California, arguing that it deprived Mexican immigrants and others the
"hours they might other wise have spent reading important books or
learning higher math."

"My state is full of semiliterate 14- year-olds.
Let
their after-school hours be filled with whatever enriching programs the
good
volunteers and philanthropic organizations of California care to offer
them:
club sports, choruses, creative-writing workshops, gardens," wrote an
enraged Flanagan. "But until our kids have a decent chance at mastering
the essential skills and knowledge that they will need to graduate from
high
school, we should devote every resource and every moment of their
academic day
to helping them realize that life-changing goal."

What Flanagan doesn't seem to grasp is that the
knowledge
and ability to grow one's own food, not to mention how to cook it in a
healthy
way, are the "real essential skills and knowledge" that will help
children live free of Type 2 diabetes and other debilitating ailments.
Ultimately it is about priorities, and if children's health and
wellbeing
aren't put first, especially in a country where youth obesity runs
rampant (in
particular among the minority populations Flanagan hopes to help), than
the
benefits of a formal education will only enhance one's life
quantitatively.

"I know [Flanagan] thinks that teaching kids about
gardening takes away from learning more important skills, and is racist
besides, but I don't buy that for a minute," counters Prof. Nestle.
"Growing food is a skill that involves plenty of learning and provides
lifelong satisfaction."

If NYC's program grows in popularity there will
likely be a
subtle backlash against the inroads it makes, and not only from
traditional
education-zealots like Flanagan. The vending machine pushers that now
satisfy
the majority of student appetites won't likely sit idly by if their
revenues
begin to dip. Certainly a few dozen gardens that fill school lunch trays
are
only a small piece of the puzzle in countering the barrage of
misinformation
and advertisements that school-aged kids are inundated with on a daily
basis.
But supporters maintain that it is at least a start.

"When children grow food and become aware of the
importance of local agriculture, we expand opportunities to serve
locally-grown
foods in schools and most importantly, we increase student consumption
of
healthy produce," said New York State Agriculture & Markets
Commissioner
Patrick Hooker.

City kids that know where their food is grown, and
in some
cases are actually planting it, is a winning recipe, stated former
pediatrician
Dr. Kornberg who now serves as executive director of Farm Sanctuary, a
group
that advocates for vegetarian diets and compassion toward farm animals.

"The growing concern for the health of this
nation's
children is definitely warranted," said Dr. Kornberg. "Nearly one in
three American children is overweight or obese, and obese kids are more
likely
to exhibit risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease, the
leading
cause of death in the United States."

Time will tell if the new way of looking at school
lunches
in NYC has any lasting impacts or ripple effects among food programs in
other
school districts across the country.

"Type 2 diabetes has skyrocketed over the last
several
decades," Dr. Allan Kornberg, Farm Sanctuary's executive director and
former pediatrician, told AlterNet. "Our hope is that this program
starts
to help address important issues like this more substantially, on a
systematic
level."

This article first appeared in Alternet.org

Joshua Frank is an environmental journalist and
author of
"Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush." He is
co-editor, with Jeffrey St. Clair, of "Red State Rebels: Tales of
Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland." Frank and St. Clair are also
the
authors of the forthcoming book, "Green Scare: The New War on
Environmentalism." He can be reached at brickburner@gmail.com.